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Right Hand Yellow…

Well, hello Friday, we meet again! First, I want to share this meme with you. A good friend made it and I have been laughing about it all day….

There is just something so perfectly ridiculous about it. For those of you who don’t understand why it’s funny–not that anyone who reads my blog wouldn’t–Merle only has one hand. I imagine playing Twister would be somewhat discouraging for him. This meme is just one of the many things I’ve been thinking about this week that I would like to see the creators of the Walking Dead tackle in future seasons. No, I don’t mean the writers should literally have cast members playing Twister. But I do think it’s about time they dealt with some real issues.

For example, the weather. TWD takes place in Georgia. The show is filmed over the spring and summer each year and thus far, weather has not been a concern, save for the one incident of a 5 minute drizzle in downtown Atlanta during season 1. Season 2 ended just as the leaves began changing and the nights started growing colder. Then the next season picked up a few months later, just as summer was taking hold again. And sure enough, as season 3 drew to a close, cast members were once again wearing jackets.

At some point the weather is going to have to become a factor in this series. Never mind the fact that GA actually does get snow and/or ice every winter, summers in the south are brutal. Spring just landed in South Carolina this past 2 weeks. There was enough pollen dumped overnight this week, that it looked as though it had snowed a yellow-green powder. You couldn’t see out of the car windows. It’s terrible. And with the pollen came a spike in temperature, from the 60s and low 70s we were just transitioning to, up to 86 degrees! The combination of the two has been enough to ruin anyone with any sort of respiratory condition, and allergy sufferers are near death. But a flash of spring heat always brings with it the start of “Tornado Season”, April showers and whatnot. It is very common to have frequent severe storm warnings issued, many becoming tornado watches and warnings. Welcome to the south. So far as I can recall, TWD hasn’t had to deal with any rain, let alone a severe storm that involves cloud to ground lightning and hail. Imagine a dark night, walkers around every corner, blinding rain, lightning strikes nearby and as it lights up the area you realize that the undead are closer than you anticipated. How does one fight off the dead while seeking shelter from an EF-5 tornado?

And speaking of bad weather, the entire east coast is vulnerable during hurricane season…just FYI. Why shouldn’t Team Prison deal with mother nature? In an apocalyptic environment, there would be more fires, mostly due to the fact that there are no more first-responders. Wouldn’t it be crazy to see someone unable to take aim or focus with their weapon because their eyes are itchy and swollen from pollen? What if Daryl Dixon sneezed just as he was about to release a bolt from his crossbow, causing him to miss his shot and reveal his location to some walkers? If this Z-Apocalypse were real, people in the southeast would be screwed during pollen season! It’s a reality we face. Just because the state of the world changes, doesn’t mean mother nature takes a hiatus.

You know who else wouldn’t take a hiatus? The animal kingdom. Yes, they have already established on the show that walkers will eat anything. We’ve seen first hand what they’ll do to horses, cattle, chickens, deer, even chipmunks. But are you expecting me to believe that all other animals have been eradicated? One of the few things I liked about the film, I Am Legend, was that there were animals from the various local zoos wandering the city. I’m sorry, a big cat would shred a walker. We can’t know what digesting the undead would do to an animal, but what a great story arc as we found out!

I watched a show once that had to do with what would happen to the earth once people were gone. They filmed most of it in the cities in and around the Chernobyl area of Russia. Those areas are a natural example of what would happen, the rate at which certain materials would break down and/or collapse, what would happen to the ecosystem, and so forth. One of the first things they discussed was domestic animals. When you consider that most are locked inside homes—many in cages or crates—these animals would have no means to access food or water. They said small dogs, the ones people have bred down in size for centuries, would be the first to go. Larger breed dogs would be more willing (as learned from specific incidents during natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina) to chew through a door or jump through a glass window, in order to try and find food. Given that walkers would more than likely eat any small breed dogs that survived, there is a chance that larger breeds, or fast medium-sized breeds, could very well escape their clutches. Within a small amount of time, new hierarchies would form in the animal kingdom, and our pets would rely on their instinctive nature to become pack animals once again. You would have packs of feral dogs roaming the city streets and countrysides competing with walkers for food.

Now that’s a situation I’d love to see happen on the show! A pack of wild dogs hunting the living, herding them into an area where there are walkers. Why aren’t there any dogs in Georgia!!?? hahaha.

Okay, I’m rambling now, but you can see where I’m going with this, right? The Walking Dead needs allergies, inclement (even dangerous) weather, and wild dogs. They could also use some toilet paper or tampon humor. We know these women experience menses (hi, Lori) and they’ve discussed a need for formula and other supplies for Judith. I’m fairly certain a time will come when one of the other ladies gets a visit from Aunt Flo and it will cause a problem. What if walkers can smell it, you know, like bears do? Oh, the humanity.